


a grief that can't be spoken

by viveriveniversumvivusvici55



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Gen, Songfic, Survivor Guilt, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viveriveniversumvivusvici55/pseuds/viveriveniversumvivusvici55
Summary: There is music for every occasion. Every opera singer learns that.Dorothea just never thought she'd know the right song forthisoccasion.
Kudos: 11





	a grief that can't be spoken

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. I should begin with the disclaimer that I love the Black Eagle house with every fiber of my being and that writing this hurt me. A lot. But this song stuck in my head and I had to push this out. 
> 
> I am specifically imagining Eddie Redmayne's version from the movie Les Miserables. 
> 
> (An unused tag: no beta we die like glenn, and like all of the black eagles)

The cathedral is empty at this time of night. The construction crews to repair it have gone quiet, retiring for the night, and all of the monks and church staff have gone to their beds. Even the wind has stilled, offering no whistles through broken stones or crumbling dust. It is peaceful. Quiet. Serene, even. The only sound to break that is Dorothea’s sniffling tears. She sits on the front pew, on stage left, where they used to have choir practise. A crumpled, soaked handkerchief sits on the pew beside her, useless at this point. She looks up down at her hands, green eyes shining with sadness that she did not shed on the battlefield.

The war is over. Fódlan has been united. Dimitri is king, Professor Byleth has become the new archbishop, and all of the lords and nobles in the land are stumbling over each other to swear fealty to both of them. They are at peace again, however tentative it feels. Everything should be alright now. 

Why does it hurt so much?

The handkerchief beside her has the sigil of the Adrestian Empire on it, a black eagle framed in red. It was a gift from Edelgard on the first day of classes. Even now, Dorothea can't bring herself to give it up. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, coughs to wet her drying throat, and stares at the cloth like it will give her an answer. Of course, it stays silent. 

She thinks she’s the only one in here. In the past, she might have taken the opportunity as a chance to run through her favourite opera songs to test the acoustics - maybe even have invited Manuela here to observe. But Manuela is still up to her elbows in blood, trying to heal as many people as she can. Still...music comforts Dorothea. She sniffles, wiping her eyes, and tries, however futilely, to put her pain into song. It has always helped her in the past - helped her push through difficult times and make way for the future. She even knows the opera for this moment. She sang in the chorus for it when she started on the stage, and she remembers every word she heard from it.

_“There's a grief that can't be spoken,”_

Her voice is soft, barely a whisper, and it trembles with the words. She knits her hands on her lap, knuckles nearly white with how tight she squeezes them.

_"There's a pain goes on and on._

_Empty chairs at empty tables,_

_Now my friends are_ **_dead-"_ **

She chokes on the last word, still not quite believing it. But it is the truth. She is the only one from the Black Eagle House who chose to follow the professor instead of the emperor.

_"and gone…"_

The only one left alive from the Black Eagle House.

_"Here they talked of revolution,_

_Here it was they lit the flame,"_

Garreg Mach was where it all started. Where they all met. Where Byleth made everything possible to change the course of history.

_"Here they sang about tomorrow and tomorrow never came._

_From the table in the corner,_

_They could see a world reborn,_

_And they rose with voices ringing,_

_And I can hear them now..."_

And she can. That is the worst part. For all that she worries that she sounds like Dimitri before, she can recall her memories of her time with the Black Eagle House with ease. Edie’s rare laughter, Ferdie and Hubie’s bantering back and forth, Bernie’s worried voice quieting to a hum as she embroidered, Caspar’s excited chirp as he readied to train, Linhardt’s low drawl as he readied himself for yet another nap, Petra (oh, Petra, sweet beloved Petra)…she remembers them all so clearly. She can picture their faces clear as day. She suspects she will be able to for as long as she lives. She does not remember the faces of everyone that she has killed for the sake of this war - goddess knows that there have been so many - but she remembers her friends. Her friends who followed Edelgard’s promise of a better future, even though that future would be paved in iron and blood.

_"The very words that they have sung_

_Became their last communion..."_

**For Adrestia and for Brigid, I will be defeating all of you! … Must I die on foreign soil?**

**For Lady Edelgard…I must pull back.**

**This is as far as I go. Why must it end here?**

**Was there any more I could have done?**

**Don’t blame yourself. It’s my fault for being weak.**

**I wish we could all stop fighting…Just my luck to be born in such a dismal time.** ****

**I am walking the path that I have cut for myself. If only you could follow it with me, Dorothea.** ****

Dorothea remembers all of their final words. They all hurt so much.

_"On this lonely battlefield, at dawn."_

Dorothea sobs, unable to stop herself. Her pain fills every syllable, but she has to see the song through.

_"Oh, my friends, my friends forgive me_

_That I live and you are gone..."_

Why didn’t she convince Petra to follow her? Why didn’t she drag Ferdinand, or Bernadetta, or any of them? Why didn’t Byleth try to pull them into her classroom? Why is she the only one to survive? The only witness to the fall of the Adrestian empire? **Why?**

_"There's a grief that can't be spoken,"_

Her fingers lift from her lap to grip at the fabric of her dress over her heart, squeezing tightly.

_"And there's a pain goes on and on..."_

Her voice rises with that last word, tears filling her eyes, and she half screams the next lines out. If this was an opera, this would be the moment before the climax where she would give the song everything she has. But this is turning into a dirge. Her final performance for her friends, if their ghosts deign to watch her from the void, and so she gives it her heart and soul, even as she cries.

_"Phantom faces at the windows,"_

Is that Ferdinand’s hair moving in the corner of her eye? Are those Edelgard’s eyes peering at her through the broken stained glass? She can’t see through the pane of tears, but it feels as though they are watching her anyway.

_"Phantom shadows on the floor,"_

Maybe she understands Dimitri now, seeing the faces of those he lose peering down at him, silently asking him if he could live with the past. Even though there was nothing he could have done…but everything that _she_ could have.

_"Empty chairs at empty tables_

_Where my friends will meet no more."_

She punches the pew, feeling the wood sting her knuckles, and she stares up at what remains of the stained glass. Maybe she’s looking for answers. Maybe she won’t hear any.

_"Oh, my friends, my friends don't ask me_

_What your sacrifice was for..."_

Her words are bitter. What was their sacrifice? The Empire fell. A different future will spread across Fodlan - a better future, but not the one that Edelgard dreamed of. All of those deaths. All in vain.

_"Empty chairs at empty tables..."_

Dorothea’s heart pounds in her ears, the pain rising to a crescendo…before it begins to quiet. It doesn’t ease. It will never ease. But she can only scream so much. What is done is done. The rose is the only bloom left in the garden, and it has grown more thorns than flowers.

_"Where my friends will sing…"_

She chokes again.

"… _no more."_

Her head hangs forward, hair falling to curtain her sobbing face from any stranger that might see her come in. There might be footsteps behind her, she can’t tell over the pounding in her temples, but she registers a weight settling around her shoulders. Fur brushing against her bare neck. Her hands come up to draw it forward and she recognizes the colours.

Dimitri’s cloak.

She turns back, uncaring of how her makeup has smeared on her face or how puffy it has gotten. The new King of Faerghus, Dimitri Blaiddyd, looks down at her with a knowing look in his one blue eye. He gently presses the cloak around her shoulders, saying nothing, his mouth pulled tight. She wonders, for a moment, if he regrets having to kill so many of their fellow students in his path for vengeance and to make the world whole again. A part of her even wants to ask, but the knot in her throat is so tight that she can barely get her next breath in. Instead, she just pulls the cloak tighter with one hand, while the other moves up to squeeze Dimitri’s hand. The black leather doesn’t comfort her much, but he doesn’t pull away.

In the distance, through her blurred vision, she sees someone else approaching her. The green hair first makes her think that it’s the professor, wanting to make things right as only she can, but as the figure walks closer, Dorothea realizes that it’s the wrong shade. Darker. Shorter.

Seteth walks up beside them, his boots clicking softly on the stone floor, and takes a seat beside Dorothea on the pew. She lets go of the cloak to try and wipe her face clean, but more tears just seem to fall. In the brief moment that her eyes are clear, Dorothea notices, to her surprise, that Seteth’s cheeks are wet too. He reaches forward and takes her free hand, giving it a squeeze of his own. Dorothea barely remembers her father, but she remembers more than ever that Seteth has a daughter. Unthinking, she tips her head forward to rest on his shoulder, seeking comfort, and he lets go of her hand to wrap his arms around her, giving it freely. Dimitri lets go as well to sit on the other side of her, hand resting on the small of her back. She doesn't sob - the singing took care of that - but she still sniffles. One of Seteth's hands slides up to cup the back of her head and pet her hair, while Dimitri rubs her back soothingly. She weeps and weeps, trembling like a little girl in between these two men who know pain and loss as intimately as they know love.

The handkerchief, unnoticed, slides off of the pew onto the cathedral floor. It unfurls from its crumpled pile to show the black eagle, bold amongst the dirt. 


End file.
